


(Here's To The) Tears and Beers and Wasted Years

by SophiaCatherine



Category: DC's Legends of Tomorrow (TV), The Flash (TV 2014)
Genre: Arguing (but light-hearted), Barry is the only emotional available person in this relationship and he’s a wreck, Brief references to Domme/sub dynamics, Brief references to prison violence, Crangst (crack with occasional angst), F/M, Hints of ADHD Barry Allen, Humor, Insomnia, Leonard Snart is Bad at Feelings, M/M, Mentions of alcohol, Multi, Mutual Oblivious Pining, Neurodivergent Mick Rory, Post-Oculus Leonard Snart, Quarantine (but not for any real-world illness), Ridiculous Plot, and Iris West isn’t much better at them honestly, but the time travel is probably real, fluff and nonsense
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-28
Updated: 2021-02-28
Packaged: 2021-03-19 01:29:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 12,306
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29742930
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SophiaCatherine/pseuds/SophiaCatherine
Summary: There’s a saying about therapy. Sometimes, it’s not the therapy that’s therapeutic. Sometimes, it’s the life lessons you learn when your partner’s evil doppelgänger reactivates your partner’s suppressed time travel powers and sends you on a one-night greatest hits tour of your relationship past, bringing your other two partners along for the ride, so that you can all have an epiphany about making the most of the present.Mick is pretty sure that’s how the saying goes. What he doesn’t know is why he couldn’t have saved $100 and figured that out for himself.Len lounges back, one leg over the other. “Fine. I’ll start. We’d been in quarantine, for a long three weeks, and we were getting on each other’s already-frayed nerves.”“Damn right,” Mick mutters. “Worse than living with an old lady. He’s always telling me to move my mug to a coaster. We got a perfectly good floor, and he doesn’t even let me leave my towel on it.”
Relationships: And other combinations thereof, Barry Allen/Leonard Snart, Barry Allen/Mick Rory/Leonard Snart/Iris West, Mick Rory/Leonard Snart
Comments: 19
Kudos: 22





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [RetroactiveCon](https://archiveofourown.org/users/RetroactiveCon/gifts).



> Happy birthday, RetroactiveCon! You and I fell head-over-heels for this OT4 by accident, so I wrote you some fic of them. You can blame the characters for the silliness of this story. And for the length. They just kept talking. Huge thanks to Aurelia for beta reading this monster!
> 
> Also, I might have plugged a bunch of ideas and tropes into a bingo card generator, and then written every square. This is how fandom bingo works, right?

_ There wouldn’t be no you and me right now  
_ _ If it weren’t for the almost maybes _

\- Jordan Davis, ‘Almost Maybes’

* * *

“Well,” Elena says, eyeing her clients. “Good morning.” She gestures between Mick and Len, sitting as far apart from each other on the couch as they can physically get. “I’m sensing some tension here. Who’d like to start?”

Mick has been seeing Elena for ten very long years. She’s the best shrink he’s ever had. Also, the most annoying. She gets right to the point, and if Mick doesn’t respond, she pushes till he cracks.

So dragging Len to therapy with him has always been a bit of a risk. The guy’s a brick wall. You crack him, a whole mess of shit can come tumbling down. 

And yet, here they are, with his partner rolling his eyes beside him. Mick ignores him. “Here’s a story for you. It was last week. Asshole here was getting jealous.”

“Please,” Len shoots back. “Of Cisco Ramon?” He scoffs. “As if I have anything to be jealous of there.”

Mick shrugs. “He’s cute.”

“His boyfriend is cuter.”

That might be a growl, escaping Mick against his will. 

“Oh, and I’m the jealous one,” Len says, with the most self-satisfied smirk he’s managed since… yesterday.

Elena coughs. “Leonard. Mick. This is arguing, not talking. It is customary to start at the beginning of a story.” She settles back in her chair with her own smug look. There are too many assholes in Mick’s life. 

Len lounges back, one leg over the other. “Fine. I’ll start. We’d been in quarantine, for a _long_ three weeks, and we were getting on each other’s already-frayed nerves.”

“Damn right,” Mick mutters. “His clean freak thing was driving me round the twist. At least if he got prissy when we were laying low in safe houses, I could threaten to throw him out and leave him to the mercy of the cops.”

Len turns his entire head to look at him. _“Prissy?”_

Mick glares back. “Worse than living with an old lady. He’s always telling me to move my mug to a coaster. We got a perfectly good floor, and he doesn’t even let me leave my towel on it.”

Elena looks like she’s working very hard not to smile. “While it’s good to see you share some frustrations, Mick, I fear we might be getting off track.”

Len does a one-shoulder shrug. “Like I said, we were in quarantine. Mick had brought back a pathogen from his… job.”

“Mick.” Elena gives him a look. “Did you go to the past without getting the era-specific vaccinations again?”

“Not my fault this time,” Mick says. “Gideon’s intel was wrong. Close your mouth, Len - ‘course Elena knows what I do.”

To be fair, Mick honestly forgot to mention that his therapist knows about his job on the Waverider. There never seemed any point in lying to Elena. She’s known him for years - she already knew about his more _Roguish_ activities. Still, it’s fun to see Len rattled. 

Len recovers his composure a moment later. “Mick was, of course, bored. So he crashed my Zoom meeting with a co-worker - Hartley.” Len aims a glare at Mick like he’s just _daring_ him to tell Elena about the Rogues. Mick just chuckles. 

“Right,” Mick agrees. “And then Hartley’s cute boyfriend Cisco joined the Zip.”

“Zoom,” Len corrects.

“That’s what I said.” Cisco had been adorably happy that day. He’d just had top surgery, which was cheering him up no end. “He’s cute, Lenny got jealous, end of story.”

“Oh,” Len drawls, “that is _so_ not the end of the story.”

“That might be where I come in,” Barry says.

Mick jumps. “Forgot you were there.”

Elena finally cracks a smile. “Please, feel free, Barry.”

Barry is new to joining Mick and Len in therapy, and it shows. He refused to come with them for months. He admitted it sounded like a good idea, and then admitted more quietly that his history with therapists isn’t the best. Now he’s fidgeting in his seat so hard that it looks like lightning is about to start sparking at the end of his fingertips, right where they’re drumming on the armrests of his seat. “Barr,” Mick says, as gently as he can.

Barry smiles at Mick, and the fidgeting slows down a little. “The funny thing is,” he says to Elena, almost conspiratorially, “is that quarantine was only for a couple of weeks.”

“Three weeks,” Mick points out.

 _“Please,”_ Len interrupts lazily. “Like you can talk, Scarlet. You could leave anytime you wanted.”

Barry scratches the back of his neck in that cute way of his. “Well, yeah. I do have super-healing powers.” Len raises his eyebrows. Whoops, so Mick forgot to tell Len that Elena knew about Barry, too. “Most pathogens would burn right through me. I didn’t have to be in quarantine - I was just keeping the others company - why are you all looking at me like that?”

To his credit, Len’s expression is just that adorable mix of fondness and exasperation that he reserves for their newer partner. Damn, Mick could look at these two look at each other forever. 

“And if you’d like me to take those powers away, I know exactly where the cold gun is,” Len drawls, with a secret little wink at Barry.

Barry sticks out his tongue at him. “So Len sulked around the house all night, just because Mick had called Cisco _cute._ Gotta admit, I’d never really noticed Len had such a jealousy problem.”

“I don’t have a jealousy problem,” Len mutters. The others ignore him.

Barry waves a ‘see?’ hand at Len. “But he was so moody, I decided not to poke at it.”

“And yet, the very next day, you did,” Len drawls.

“That might have been my fault,” Iris says.

Mick jumps. “Forgot you were there.”

Iris tilts her head at him. “Being spectacularly _you_ today, aren’t you, Mick?”

“Therapy’ll do that,” Mick mutters. Iris makes a sad face and reaches over from the other chair to give his knee a little pat in apology. He winks at her, in a gesture he hopes says _Netflix and chill later, just you and me._ He gets an amused raised eyebrow back, so she got the message.

Elena taps her pen against her clipboard, because she’s worse than a teacher. “Iris,” she says, in a bright but increasingly impatient tone, “please do carry on.”

Iris links her hands around her folded legs. Unlike Barry, she’s not the least bit intimidated by Elena, even if she always comes home from therapy complaining about being _tricked into admitting to having feelings._ Len always nods in sad agreement. “It got worse later that night,” Iris says, “over dinner. Barry had cooked us a lovely stew—”

“And we were all glad it was his turn to cook.” Mick attempts a sage nod. He gets identical withering looks from Len and Iris.

“Barry had cooked us a lovely stew,” Iris repeats with exaggerated patience. “And what should come up in dinner conversation, but Len’s ridiculous jealousy.”

“I’m not jealous,” Len mutters. The other three ignore him.

“And,” Iris continues, “because I’m a lot braver than Barry, I got curious. I just had to figure out if this was a pattern in Mick and Len’s relationship.”

“Damn right it is,” Mick interjects, while Barry whispers about being _very brave as the Flash_ and Iris nods indulgently. “Over thirty years, me and Len have been partners. The jealousy thing’s been—”

“Exactly thirty years,” Len interrupts - god forbid he miss a chance to correct Mick. “If you take out the time I was dead.”

“We don’t talk about the time you were dead,” Iris, Barry and Mick say, all at once.

Elena raises an eyebrow and makes a note on her clipboard. “Oh, we’re going to talk about the time he was dead. But that sounds like it could take _several_ sessions, so let’s get back to the story at hand. For now.”

Len mutters something under his breath. The other three ignore him.

“So this one—” Mick nudges Iris with another wink— “says, ‘I wanna hear about young jealous Len.’”

If Len could roll his eyes any harder, they’d be out of the back of his head and free-wheeling away to the door. “I’m young _now.”_

“Of course you are, my love,” Iris says, reaching as far as she can across Mick to pat Len’s shoulder. Barry snorts. 

Len shakes his head at them all, and turns back to Elena. “Naturally, I told Iris that there were no stories to be told.”

“Naturally, I didn’t believe him,” Iris shoots back. “But he and Mick were too busy freezing each other out—”

 _“Hah.”_ Len smirks like a cat in a kitchen where a pot of cream has fallen off the table right into its path. 

“Too busy ignoring each other,” Iris corrects herself, “to tell any stories that night.”

Barry sighs. “Oh, but the next night.”

Mick raises a hand. “So, about the next night. Barry brought groceries home. There was beer.”

“And wine,” Iris says cheerfully.

“And whiskey,” Len adds in an approving tone.

Barry drops his head to his knees. “In my defense, they all really seemed to need alcohol.”

“Three weeks, Red,” Mick says, in the most long-suffering voice he can manage. _“You_ got to go out. I had to stay in the same apartment as Leonard Snart for the entire time.”

“I love you too,” Len says without missing a beat.

Mick grins. “Aww.” He’ll take those public _I love you_ s where he can get them. He knows he’s only getting sincere ones when no one else is around. But they’re all great, now that Len can finally say the words at all. 

Elena clears her throat. Pointedly. “So, there was alcohol?”

“There was!” Iris says. “And it was my night to cook—”

“So we were having toast,” Barry adds, not as helpfully as he seems to think.

Iris tilts her head at her husband in a very particular way, that tells Mick she’s having a grand time planning his punishment in her head. “Cheese toasties,” she counters. “And wine and beer and whiskey. So let’s just say that, by about nine in the evening, we were all pretty relaxed.” 

Barry beams at her. “And this is where Iris’s reporter curiosity really got the better of her.” 

Iris pulls a suitably contrite face. “I... might have proposed a game of truth or dare.”

Elena looks like she’s trying very hard not to laugh. “And how did that go?”

Mick nods slowly. “Horrible.”

Len is still wearing his asshole cat smirk. “Like all our games, it kinda turned into a game of two teams. Married couple versus married couple.” 

Barry does an adorable bounce. “It’s what marriage is for!” 

Elena almost smiles. “Team leaders - Len and Iris?”

“Of course,” Len and Iris say, with identical shrugs. Barry and Mick exchange long-suffering expressions. Emphasis on the _suffering._

“But,” Iris says, “Len is exaggerating.” She sighs at the sounds of disbelief around her. “Fine! Most of our games do split into _kind of_ competitive married teams with appropriately ambitious team leaders. But this one went a little differently.” She sits forward. “All right, folks. As writer-in-residence, I’m taking over this story. Put your hand down, Mick - when we need romance, I promise I’ll invite you to take over.”

Mick checks his watch. “So, in about ten minutes then?” 

“Sure,” she sighs. Mick grunts in vague agreement, but he listens.

* * *

ONE WEEK EARLIER 

Iris was about to kill her partners.

She lay in bed staring into the dark, listening to two of them being awake and annoying, while she regretted ever buying this huge bed for four.

On her left side, the sounds of a master thief planning his next heist were keeping her awake. Len kept sighing. And coughing. And muttering _numbers,_ which meant he was up to ‘I need blueprints’ stage. At least that meant from tomorrow night he’d be spending his sleepless hours at the kitchen table, where he could talk to himself all night and bother no one.

On Len’s far side, she could hear Mick having his own specific brand of insomnia. Mick had two approaches to sleep. There was Mick Rory Sleep Mode 1: _deepest_ _slumber of the dead from which I am never to be awoken_ mode. And there was Mick Rory Sleep Mode 2: _awake all night for three nights in a row until I’m so grouchy my partners are ready to slip sleeping pills into the coffee I shouldn’t be drinking_ mode. From the sound of his tossing and turning, Mode 2 was in operation. Tomorrow was going to be fun.

And just to complete the trifecta of things making Iris homicidal, on her right Barry was enjoying the peaceful, well-deserved rest of a hard-working hero. “I hate you,” she muttered in his direction. 

Barry sighed happily, murmured, “I love you too, Iris,” and rolled over.

“Two thousand, one hundred and twenty-four,” Len whispered. “Divide by—”

“Go to _sleep,_ Leonard,” Iris hissed.

He put up a hand, much as he would if Iris had interrupted an important work meeting and he was being too indulgent to complain about it. “Shh.” 

“Sleep is for the weak,” Mick murmured. 

“Oh my god,” Iris hissed. “Can you two quit it already? If you can’t, then go be jerks in the living room. There’s entire tables there where you can plan criminal endeavors, Leonard. And a TV to watch if you’re bored, Mick.”

Just visible in the thin moonlight, Mick dragged himself upright. “Nah,” he said. “I might fall asleep. Anytime now.” He poked Len. “You should go plan though.”

“I’m not planning!” Len protested, a little too loudly.

Barry sat up so fast, Len squeaked. “I’m awake! What happened?”

“A couple of assholes broke into our house a year ago, and now they won’t leave us alone. Go back to sleep, babe.” Iris glared at the other two. “Let’s _all_ go back to sleep.”

Mick lay down again. “Fine.”

Len sighed. “Fine.”

Barry let out a gentle, peaceful snore.

Iris wriggled back down under the covers and closed her eyes.

A full minute later, Len said, “I’m bored.” 

Mick hit him on the arm. “Me too.”

“I,” Iris said to the dark ceiling, “am going to kill you both.”

“I’m awake!” Barry shouted.

Sighing, Iris got up. “Follow me, boys,” she said, in her most commanding voice. She didn’t need to look behind her to know that two very contrite criminals and one sleepy hero were doing what they were told.

Three cups of hot cocoa later, Iris sat curled up on the sofa with Barry wrapped around her, while Mick and Len cuddled up together in the big armchair. Iris glared at Len over his enormous stack of mini marshmallows. “Truth or dare.”

“Scrabble,” Len shot back.

Barry yawned. “I hate Scrabble.”

“Truth or dare it is.” Mick nodded at Iris. “Go on, Star.”

“Yes.” Len said dryly. _“Please_ ask us about our deepest secrets, Iris.”

“We already know them all,” Barry said, with a sappy smile at Len, who returned a look of pure terror.

Iris was pretty sure Barry was wrong there. And the more Len played up the jealous bastard role, the more she was sure something else was going on. As if this was an interview with a hostile source, Iris went fishing. “Hartley Rathaway,” she said casually.

Len raised an unimpressed eyebrow. “...Yes?”

Iris remembered being a bit of a gossip, as a schoolgirl. She channeled that inner tenth grade popular girl into her tone. “Is he just a co-worker, or do you _like him?”_

“Co-worker.”

Mick snorted.

“He’s cute,” Len said. “But _just_ cute.”

“That’s what you always say,” Mick muttered. “Like with Tom Nillson?”

Eyes wide in warning, Len turned his head to glare at his partner. 

“Who’s Tom Nillson?” Barry and Iris asked in unison. 

Mick cackled. “Aww, they wanna hear the story.”

“Truth,” Iris said.

Len glared into his mug. “I already answered one. Hey, anyone want a fourth cup of cocoa?”

Mick grinned. “He’s never gonna tell you. Get him to do a dare, Star.”

“Ooh, yes please,” Barry said, with a happy little rock.

Len brightened. “I’m listening.”

Admittedly, Iris had not thought this far ahead. Tempting Leonard Snart to a _dare_ would only end up delighting him and terrifying her. Like last May Day, when they were all sitting around a bonfire as Mick told them the story of the Irish Pagan tradition of jumping over the Beltane fire, and Barry dared Len to do it. Those flames had been six feet in the air. 

“Oh no. We are not doing any more dares,” Iris said quickly, before Len could pick one of his own. “But you sound like you’ve got a truth you want to share, Mick.”

Barry’s eyebrows bounced like he was barely in control of them. “Give us the story, Mick!” 

As Iris watched, Mick crooked his neck to look at his still-glaring partner. Something ancient and wordless passed between them, and Len quirked the tiniest edge of a smile at his partner. “Nah,” Mick decided, with a hint of a smile back at Len. “Some stories are better not told.” 

Iris covered her own smile with a sip of cocoa, wondering if she and Barry would be that adorable when they’d been together for thirty years.

* * *

NOW 

“And that,” Mick says, “is when we were interrupted.”

Barry pouts at him, like he thinks it’s cute. (It is cute, but Mick’s not telling him that.) “I wanted to tell this part.”

Elena sighs with exaggerated patience. “As delightful as these stories are, I was hoping to ask some questions. When you got here, I was sensing some tension—”

“We’re getting to that,” all four of them say at once.

Throwing up a hand in defeat, Elena says, “Fine. Mick. You were going to tell the, uh, next part of the story?”

“Sure was. ‘Cause this part is about me.” 

“And me,” mutters a roundly ignored Len. Barry pats his knee.

Mick folds his hands together. “So, like Iris said, we were playing truth or dare, and that was when Len’s evil doppelgänger interrupted—”

Elena drops her pen. “Len’s evil _what?_ ” 

Mick unfolds his hands so he can put a finger on his lips. “I’m getting to that.”


	2. Chapter 2

ONE WEEK EARLIER

“Nah. Some stories are better not told.” Mick was so busy gazing at his partner, he almost didn’t notice the burst of blue light in the corner of the living room. 

But he did notice Barry flashing away and pinning the intruder to the wall.

If there was one thing Mick really took some dark satisfaction in, it was seeing the Flash get angry with someone who deserved it. He and Len were both out of their seats and backing him up in a second, heat and cold guns raised. 

“And this is why we never listen to you about keeping our guns in the parking garage,” Mick called out over his shoulder.

“Not the time, Mick!” Iris snapped, gesturing violently in the direction of Barry, where he was holding… Len?

Mick looked at the Len snarling at Barry. Then he looked at the Len standing beside him. “Hang on. If you’re here, who’s that?”

The intruder smirked. It was uncanny. “I’m Leonard Snart.” 

“A Leonard Snart who dresses like an asshole,” Mick muttered. The other Snart was head to toe in some kind of blue and white tracksuit with  _ no sleeves _ \- but he had the same face as Mick’s Len.

“We know who you are,” drawled the real Len, his expression hard as ice.

The other Snart inclined his head. “Always nice to meet a—”

Len rolled his eyes.  _ “Don’t _ say it.” To Mick, he muttered, “I’m the worst.”

Mick grinned back at him. “Always said so.” 

Barry was gripping the intruder by the shoulders hard enough to hurt. “You popped into existence in the middle of my damn apartment, so you’re gonna talk. Identity yourself properly, or I’m taking you into custody.”

“Fine,” the other Snart drawled. “I’m Leonard Snart from Earth-228. And you’re a dead man, if you don’t let me go, Flash.” 

“No cold gun,” Len murmured to Mick.

Snart-228 laughed. “I don’t need one.” Finally breaking one hand free from Barry’s grasp, he raised it. “Observe.”

There was another flash of blue light. 

Len stumbled backwards. 

“Lenny!” Mick yelled. It was drowned out by the Flash’s roar, as he decked the intruder. Mick barely had a second to be impressed before Barry zipped back to Len’s side, just as Mick lowered him to the ground. 

“What did you do to him?” Barry yelled at Snart-228.

“Call it a gift from the Oculus,” said Snart-228, dragging himself up from the floor. “Remember that chip your little team put in his head, to block his time travel powers? It’s gone.” He smirked, adding, “I threw in an extra gift as a favor.” He raised a hand as Barry snarled at him. “Be seeing you, Flash.”

Lightning sparked around Barry - and Len put a hand on his arm. “Leave him,” he murmured. “He’s gone already.”

Looking up into an empty room, Barry sighed and nodded. 

Iris was at their side a moment later, helping them get Len up and to the couch. “What did he mean?” she asked.

Barry dropped down next to Len, wrapping protective arms around him. It was so cute, Mick didn’t bother trying to fight him for the honor of looking after their mutual partner. “He meant,” Len said, “that I’ve got Oculus time travel powers again.”

Mick growled. “Like—”

“Yes, Mick, like visions of the past and future.”

“And—”

“Yes, Mick, like giving other people a window into said past and future.”

“And what about—”

_ “Yes,  _ Mick, like wandering around the time stream getting randomly lost in time, like a hitchhiker on the side of the most depressing highway in the multiverse, now can we focus on what we’re going to do about this,  _ please?” _

Barry kissed Len’s forehead. “We need to get you to STAR Labs and see what exactly he’s done to the chip.”

Len was doing a good impression of someone planning the many ways he was going to kill his evil doppelgänger. “Chip’s gone. I can tell.” 

Mick could feel Len’s frustration from here. He had  _ not _ enjoyed the year he’d been stuck with those Oculus visions. 

“STAR Labs,” Barry insisted again.

But Len was shaking his head. “Let’s give it a night to see what happens. We’re supposed to be in quarantine. Shouldn’t be breaking it until we’re sure it’s really an emergency.” He dropped a little kiss on Barry’s head, murmuring, “You’re sweet to worry, but my slightly more evil and significantly less stylish doppelgänger might just have been a con artist with some flashy blue lights.”

“Conning you for what, exactly?” Barry asked. Len just shrugged.

That curious reporter expression was back on Iris’s face. “What did he mean about giving you  _ an extra gift?” _

“I don’t know. Guess we’ll find out...” Len groaned as the room dissolved in blue light. “Right now, it seems.”

* * *

NOW

“Hold on,” Elena says, with a look at Len that says  _ none of you have told your therapist nearly enough about your lives, and we’re going to have words about that shortly. _ “You had time travel powers?”

Len inclines his head. “For a while.”

“A year,” Mick adds helpfully. So Len has never told Elena about the Oculus powers. Interesting.

“Yes, for a  _ year.” _ Len glares at Mick. “Until Barry and his team put a chip in my head. I decided I preferred life without the minor inconvenience of time travel powers.”

Barry coughs. “What Len  _ means _ is that the Oculus was ruining his life, he and Mick were desperate, and they broke into our apartment demanding a cure. I tried to persuade him we could train him to use his powers, but he said—”

“Fuck that,” Len drawls, lounging back with one leg hiked over the other, like he’s trying to pretend it doesn’t hurt to remember any of this. Mick reaches out to still Len’s jiggling knee.

Elena sighs. “And you got time travel powers how, exactly?”

“I died,” Len says flatly. 

“We don’t talk about the time when you died,” Iris, Barry and Mick chorus, a little less enthusiastically than last time. 

“I was telling a story,” Mick adds, before Elena can insist on more details of said death. Len gives him a very slight grateful nod. Mick aims an equally tiny smile back at him, and carries on.

* * *

ONE WEEK EARLIER

“Right now, it seems.”

There was a flash of blue light—

—And the four of them were standing in a warehouse. It looked mostly abandoned, with a crumbling roof and piles of rubble on the floor. 

“Fantastic,” Len muttered.

While Barry flashed around in a whirlwind of lightning, Iris put a hand on Len’s arm. “Did you do this?” she asked gently.

Len nodded. “One of my many talents, before you fixed me. Dragging people into my visions of the past and future.” He glanced around the warehouse, sighing. “Past, in this case.”

Mick was sure he knew this place. He stepped towards a board leaning against the wall, covered in blueprints. “Cavendish Street.” He elbowed Len. “Where we planned the Opal City Bank heist. What was it - 2005?”

“Sounds about right,” Len said, stony-faced. 

Barry zipped back in beside them. “It’s definitely 2005,” he whispered. “There’s one of those Nokia bricks on the table - and a newspaper. Should we be worried that there are people in the next room?”

“They won’t see us.” Len whirled around, a finger raised. “We’re not really here. Think of this like… a really vivid hallucination.”

“That we’re all having at once?” Barry said doubtfully, as if impossible situations were new to him.

“Yes, Barry.” Len shrugged one shoulder in his usual dramatic way. “The Oculus likes to take me on little tours of my past. Who knows why.” 

Barry blinked at him. “And you’re sure I didn’t just run us through time by mistake? I did that once when I was drunk on Flash-proof alcohol. I might have kind of overshot trying to get to Iceland.”

Iris beamed indulgently at her husband. “You wanted to see the Northern Lights.” 

Mick loved Barry with all his heart, but the West-Allens really proved that every dork had one perfect partner who would find them adorable no matter what ridiculous shit they pulled. Only, in Barry’s case, he was somehow blessed with two of them. (In spite of the love-goggles, Mick just thought he was a dork.) Mick patted Barry’s arm. “Me and Len have done this shared-time-travel-vision thing before. We’ll get sent home in a minute. Once Len’s got whatever damn message the Oculus wants to give him.”

“Like  _ A Christmas Carol!” _ Iris said, delighted - and clapped a hand over her mouth. “Never mind.” 

Len got as far as narrowing his eyes at her, before his protest was interrupted. 

A side door opened. Into the room walked a much younger Leonard Snart, with an almost-as-young Mick Rory. From Mick’s perspective, Len managed never to look a day older, and yet this version of him still had an adorable baby face.

Mick made an impressed noise. “Damn. I was cute in my thirties.” 

“Shh,” Iris whispered, wide-eyed. 

Len sighed, but it was hard not to listen. The younger Len and Mick were arguing at enough of a volume to make Mick and Barry wince in sync.

“I am  _ not _ trying to get Tom Nillson into bed!” baby-faced Len snapped, stomping to the fridge in the corner and pulling out an energy drink. 

Ah, the days before they’d had kitchen facilities in their safe houses. Len had always protested that he’d only burn the place down if they did, and that Mick already had that covered. “I don’t know how we didn’t die of scurvy,” older Mick muttered, to the interest of none of the others. They were all busy watching the argument like it was a TV show. It wasn’t nearly so compelling to Mick, who knew how it ended.

Younger Mick, who really was very handsome, was fuming in that way that he used to before he met the Legends, grew up and calmed the fuck down. Mick remembered how that felt - embers burning a hole in his belly, ready to burst into flame at the slightest provocation. Usually from Len. “Sure you’re not,” handsome Mick grumbled. “You were just fawning all over every damn word he said for no reason.” 

“Please,” young Len drawled. “He’s kinda cute, but so are half the gay guys in this city. Doesn’t mean I wanna fall into bed with all of them.”

Young Mick strode towards Len, his mouth curling into a sneer. “Oh  _ yes, _ Tom, I’d love to see your security intel, Tom. You’re so clever, Tom. I can rely on you, Tom.” He stopped by the fridge, eye-to-eye with his partner, still fuming.

The younger Len’s gaze dropped briefly to the floor. Young Mick was scaring him, and he hadn’t even noticed. Older Mick had a sudden urge to clock the asshole in the jaw. Wanting to punch his past self wasn’t even a new experience for him.

“I am  _ not _ that blatant.” Only now, with fifteen years of distance, could Mick see how young Len had to force himself to glare up at his angry partner. “The hell is your problem, anyway? Why do you care if I wanna fuck him? Not like  _ you’re _ interested.” 

You could have heard a match drop in that warehouse. 

And young Mick turned away. “No,” he muttered. “Ain’t like I am.” 

This time, older Mick stayed to see the devastated expression on Len’s face. 

He stayed, to watch their two younger versions walk away in opposite directions. 

He was still staring after his younger self when Len cleared his throat. “If the Oculus brought us here just to show Iris who Tom Nillson was,” he drawled, “I’m gonna be less than impressed.”

“Well.” Iris sounded a lot more muted than before. “I guess that’s it?” 

The world faded into blue as Len said, “Huh. Guess so.”

Mick blinked himself back to awareness in the West-Allens’ living room. “We’re back.”

Len dragged himself up off the floor. “We never left,” he said, very quietly. 

And then he stalked away towards the bedroom.

* * *

NOW

“So,” Elena says, sharp eyes taking in all four of them. _ “That’s _ what the tension’s about?”

In unison, Mick, Barry and Iris say, “No. We’re getting to that.” 

It’s just Len who stays quiet, suddenly not in the mood for jokes.

Elena’s sharp eyes take him in. “Do you want to tell me how it felt, re-experiencing that, Len?” 

Len raises his eyebrows at the tiled floor. There’s a crack running down the middle. You’d never notice it until you really looked. “Mick and I have talked about how we spent most of our thirty-year partnership with me being a pining coward and him being an oblivious asshole. Do we really need to go over it again?”

Elena hums. “Well, if you’d like to explore it, I’m here to listen. But I sense you want to continue with the story?”

“Correct.” Len hikes one leg over the other, sets his face hard, and drawls like he used to, when the name Captain Cold still meant something. “Here’s how I made it worse.”


	3. Chapter 3

ONE WEEK EARLIER

Len went back to bed. 

Sleep wasn’t exactly forthcoming. He stared up into the dark, thinking about that day from the other perspective. Len remembered  _ longing _ for Mick to tell him why it mattered that Len was into another guy. He hadn’t even been serious about Tom Nillson. He’d been trying to make Mick jealous. And then it had worked… and Mick wouldn’t admit he cared. 

Because Mick hadn’t  _ known _ he cared.

They didn’t talk about the mutual oblivious pining till years later. After Len had died - _“death_ _kinda puts that shit in perspective”_ \- and he and Mick were finally getting their act together. And Mick told him that, all that time, he even hadn’t realised he was pining over Len.

(“You know I’m shit with feelings,” Mick had said. “Ain’t like you knew you were in love with me, either.”

Len looked at him, and said nothing.)

But it was all so long ago, Len thought, turning over and closing his eyes. It didn’t matter anymore. Was the Oculus really just showing Barry and Iris the answer to their curious questions - or was it giving them a tour of all Len’s flaws, having a laugh at his expense? Sounded about right.

Ah, the Oculus. Len sighed as he turned restlessly onto his other side. In the morning, he was going straight to STAR Labs to get that chip put back in his head. He sure as hell couldn’t live with the shittiest superpowers ever. Not when they risked ruining the first real happiness he’d ever had.

_ “I thought you said you two had talked about it.” _ Barry’s muffled voice filtered through the wall.  _ “The oblivious-pining-for-thirty-years thing.”  _

_ “We did.” _ Mick, this time. He sounded subdued.  _ “We said like, four words about it, but we did.” _

_ “Ah,” _ came Iris’s voice.  _ “This was a Mick-and-Len conversation. All confusing code words and long, meaningful looks. No actual acknowledgement of feelings.” _

_ “‘Course it was. You ever met us?” _

Len laughed. Getting up, he pulled on a t-shirt, and wandered back into the living room. “In my defence, I’m not sure I have feelings to acknowledge.”

Barry made a dismissive noise, patting the sofa beside him. Len sank down next to him, planting a little kiss on his lips, which drew a much more agreeable sound from his speedster. Then Len turned to Mick, curled up at the other end of the sofa with Iris. “Hey, partner.”

Mick grunted.

“Come on,” Len coaxed. “Tell me you’re mad because you had to relive my most assholey moment in our entire relationship history.”

“Hah.” Mick grinned. “You think that was the worst? I could tell these two some stories.”

“Please don’t,” said Barry and Iris, at the same time.

Len raised an eyebrow.

Barry shrugged. “I don’t want the Oculus taking us to look at those, too.”

Laughing, Len ruffled Barry’s hair, just to see him make the cute face. Making his own face at Mick, he said, “Sorry, partner.”

This time, Mick’s grunt was fond. “We’re both the worst. We figured it out in the end.” 

Len grinned back at him. “I don’t know what point the Oculus was trying to make, except how long we’ve been in love and too ridiculous to realize it. But I’m not sure I want to know.”

“Hmm,” Iris said, with the barest raise of an eyebrow. “How long  _ have _ you two been in love?”

“Ah. Doesn’t really matter.” Mick took a sip of a beer that seemed to have magically appeared in front of him, and glared up at the ceiling. “He’s forgiven, okay, you big blue bastard? Now if you could stop yanking us around time for the rest of the night, we’d sure appreciate it.”

That,  _ of course, _ was the moment everything exploded in a blinding burst of blue.

“Oh, for fuck’s sake!” Mick yelled.

“Inclined to agree with you there, partner,” Len says, as a dark room resolved around them. 

“It’s dark,” Barry said.

Len refrained from suggesting that Barry’s new superhero name should be Captain Obvious. “It’s okay, Scarlet. There are supervillains here to protect you. Good thing you didn’t send ‘em all to Iron Heights, hmm?” 

He got a limp whack on the arm for that one. “Yes, thank you,” came Barry’s voice. “Where are we?”

“Give it a sec.” Mick’s voice was oddly muted. “A lighter’s gonna spark.”

He was right. A moment later, a little flare of light in the dark revealed—

“That’s you,” Iris said. 

“Yup,” Mick stared at himself with wide, unhappy eyes. Young Mick - very young, maybe 17 - was barely illuminated by the tiny flame, shadows dancing across his face as his pencil hovered above a piece of paper. Len could tell he was straining to read back over what he’d already written there.

“Juvie.” Len glared at the bandages wrapped around Mick’s ribs, and glanced around at the cell, as it all came together. “Solitary housing,” Len spat out. “Illegal, for under-eighteens.”

“Not like that ever stopped ‘em,” Mick muttered. “You do  _ remember _ Iron Heights juvie wing, don’t you?” His hand ghosted over his ribs. “Shitty guards.”

Unfortunately, Len did remember it. But it hadn’t been so bad when he and Mick had been there together. Until Len got out, and Mick still had six months left to serve. Mick’s letters had been all that kept Len going.

Len’s eyes returned to young Mick and his piece of paper. “You were writing to me.” 

“Yeah.” Mick’s voice was a whisper now. “They let me have pencil and paper ‘cause they thought I didn’t know how to use it. Shh.”

_ “Dear Len,” _ young Mick read aloud.  _ “Hope you’re hanging in there.” _

“Keeping myself company,” the older Mick rushed to explain. “Solitary gets awful quiet.” 

Len said nothing. It wasn’t his secret to tell - that a dyslexic teenage Mick always read aloud to help keep the words straight. Years later, catching him at it, Len took Mick to get glasses - and gave him a few reading lessons. Len claimed it just gave him something to do while they were laying low after a heist. But he still remembers sitting at Mick’s elbow as he poured over words, and seeing the spark in Mick’s eyes when Len found him books he liked. The first ones Mick couldn’t put down were about dragons. Of course.

Len could hear teenage Mick straining over every word now.  _ “Hope you’re good. Lisa too. Glad your dad’s being better. If he gets bad again, I can burn down your house. We can get somewhere else to live.” _

Len chuckled, reaching for Mick’s hand. “An adolescent Mick Rory threatening arson on my home. Height of romance.”

“It was,” Mick said softly.

“I know,” Len said even more softly, with a little smile Mick wouldn’t see in the dark. A squeeze of Len’s hand told him Mick was smiling back.

Young Mick sighed, moving the pencil into place on the letter - and putting it down again. He talked, instead, as if Len was right there. “I think I made you mad with my last letter. You don’t gotta be jealous of Ali. Me and her ain’t a thing anymore. There’s someone else I’m interested in.” The kid’s eyes widened and he shook his head. “Can’t say that. He’ll think you’ve lost it.” He picked up the pencil again, chewing the end.

Barry coughed. “Did it always take you this long to write him a letter?”

“You don’t know the half of it,” Mick muttered. 

Len felt his grin get wider. “Should have seen what I was like when the letters got to me. Kept ‘em under my pillow.”

Iris made the kind of ‘aww’ noise that people did not get to make about Len. He shushed her. She giggled and found his other hand.

Not for the first time, Len wondered just how he got this lucky three times over. Especially when his first relationship was this much of a disaster from the get-go. “What were you trying to tell me, Mick?” he asked the grown-up version of his partner.

“Keep watching,” Mick said quietly.

Young Mick let out a choked-off roar of frustration - and a sudden, terrified glance at the door, as his hand moved to the bandages around his ribs.

Low in his throat, Len growled.

Flopping down onto the mattress, letter abandoned beside him, young Mick talked to the ceiling. “I miss you, Lenny. It’s shit in here without you. Wasn’t  _ great _ with you here, but it was… better.” He flicked off the lighter, plunging the little cell into lonely darkness. “I love you,” came the unmistakable whisper. “And when I get out of here, I’m gonna come find you, and we’re gonna be together forever...” He trailed off with a sigh.

For the longest moment of Len’s life, there was silence.

Then a sleepy voice added, “Love, Mick.”

“...Oh,” Len said, as the cell faded away into their painfully bright living room.

It was quieter in the apartment than in solitary. 

Barry rubbed the back of his neck.

Iris stared awkwardly at the floor, pursing her lips.

And Mick wouldn’t meet Len’s eyes.

“You told me you didn’t know you were in love with me till years later.” Len’s voice came out a little flat.

“Yeah,” Mick said. “About that.”

Standing up, Iris took her husband’s hand. “Come on, babe. Let’s go back to bed and give these two some space.”

“But I want to—” Barry started.

A single look from Iris shut him up.

Mick shot a delighted grin after them as they disappeared through to the bedroom. “Mistress Iris is in the building.” 

Len didn’t answer.

Mick blew out a sigh. When he spoke, he sounded sadder than Len had heard him for a long time. Maybe not since Len died and was left watching a heartbroken Mick from the time stream. “I lied.” Mick’s sad eyes looked up at him. “You’d just come back from the  _ dead,  _ Len. Great time to tell me you’d been in love with me forever. And there I was, looking back on thirty damn years when I’d been too scared to say anything, ‘cause I was sure you didn’t care…” He glanced away. “Easier to say I never knew I was in love with you.”

“But you did know.” Len just needed to hear it from Mick’s mouth.

“Yeah.” 

“Since you were seventeen.”

“Yeah.”

Len let his head fall back against the couch. Patterns swirled in the ceiling, as night shadows chased lamplight. Ghosts. “I get it,” he said after a minute. “Why you couldn’t tell me you loved me, all those years ago. I’m not mad at juvie-you.” Mick had been angry and scared, trying to survive a world that hated everything about him. “Guess I’m not really even mad at  _ you  _ you, for lying about it when I came back. I’m just… Oh, hell. I don’t know.” He reached out a hand for his partner. “We were in love, and both of us knew it. And we did fuck all about it. We wasted thirty years.”

Without a moment’s hesitation, Mick took the offered hand, squeezing it tight. “We didn’t waste it, Lenny. Not a minute.”

Len threaded his fingers through Mick’s, enjoying the pressure for a second. Mick was right here. What did the past matter? 

…It mattered.

Len swiped his other hand across tired eyes. “Wish I could believe that.”

“Come on.” Mick gave Len’s hand a tug. “Let’s go to bed.”

So they did.

* * *

NOW

The silence in the room is so thick, Barry can feel it. 

“Hey,” Mick murmurs to Len. “Cheer up. It got better.”

Len chuckles and bumps Mick’s shoulder. Barry smiles, reaching out for Iris’s hand while no one’s watching the two of them too closely.

Elena, who has been scribbling notes on her clipboard so violently that she just broke a pen, nods like she’s solved a puzzle. “So that’s what the tension is about.” 

“No,” the four of them say. “We’re getting to that.”

Because the look on Elena’s face suggests she’s about to throw them all out, Barry picks up the thread. “I think it’s my turn to tell the next part,” he says, in his Flash voice, so no one can argue. “Are you sitting comfortably?” he asks their long-suffering therapist (he’s giving her an  _ excellent _ tip at Christmas). “Because it’s time for the happy ending.”

“Show-off. I’m the damn writer,” Mick mutters. Barry grins at him, and continues the story.


	4. Chapter 4

ONE WEEK EARLIER 

Even Barry wasn’t getting any more sleep that night, apparently. 

On his left, Iris was sighing. Repeatedly.

On his right, Len had just rolled over for the fourth time in fifteen minutes, and now he was muttering. About a heist, from the sound of it - and Barry couldn’t even hear well enough to get any useful information. What was the good of sleeping with your nemesis if it didn’t help you foil their dastardly plans? 

“...and then twenty-six minutes to the guard shift change…”

“Go to sleep, Snart,” muttered a sleepy Mick. The last name was a sure sign that Mick was in planning mode now, too. Barry did not like the implication that the two of them could _plan jobs while they slept._ If they started sleepwalking their way through heists, Barry was sending them to a sleep clinic.

“Can’t,” Len murmured back.

Iris sucked in a breath through her nose. “Can you at least _try?”_

“Don’t want to.”

Okay. Time to be an emotional support hero to two criminals who couldn’t handle feelings. Barry sat up, groaning. “Rogues. Do we need to talk about this?”

“No, _heroes,_ we don’t,” Len snapped.

On the far side of the bed, Mick pulled himself up with a deep sigh that said more about how he was feeling than he ever would in words. “...Maybe.”

It was Iris who reached over to turn on the bedside lamp. “I vote yes, too.”

Len put a pillow over his head.

Barry glanced at the distant look in Mick’s eyes. He leaned down to kiss the side of Len’s head. “You’ve been outvoted, my sweet thief,” he murmured. “Mick needs you.”

Removing the pillow from his head, Len glanced from Barry to Mick and back again. “Can he need me in the morning?”

Mick’s voice was quiet. “You really think we wasted thirty years, Lenny?” 

That was what finally seemed to knock some sense into Len. He sat up slowly. “I don’t know,” he admitted.

Mick nodded at Barry, and at Iris, who seemed suddenly fascinated by the patterns on the duvet cover. “We got together because of these two.”

Barry reached for the hand of a stony-faced Len. “You did.” Barry could see it, clearer than in any Oculus vision. “What did you say, Mick, that day when you broke into the apartment?” The words were running like a recording through his head, but he wanted to hear it from Mick.

Mick frowned. “That Len was bored and I needed you to have a fight with him before I lost the plot and threw him back into the time stream?”

Barry can’t help chuckling. _“After_ that.”

Mick’s eyes narrowed. “That Len needed help.” 

“Because you loved him.”

“Yeah,” Mick murmured, as Len reached out his free hand for him. “I said that too.”

Barry squeezed Len’s other hand. “And as much as the two of you have had your ups and downs—”

“Hah,” Len interrupted, rolling his eyes to the shadow-dappled ceiling. 

“Sure, that’s what I’d call ‘em,” Mick muttered.

“And as much as you’ve had your _ups and downs,”_ Barry repeated, giving them a look, “you two have always loved each other. Yes?”

“...Yes,” Len said after a moment.

“Yeah.” Mick shifted closer to Len, till he was almost - but not quite - snuggled against him.

On Barry’s other side, Iris was smiling gently.

“So does it really matter what you called it?” Barry asked. “Or that Iris and I were the catalyst that made you realise you were in love?”

Len tilted his head at Barry. “Someone’s giving himself a lot of credit.”

“He’s not wrong, though,” Iris said cheerfully. Powerless as ever in the face of her smile, Len inclined his head with that adoring look that ended every disagreement between them. It was as close as Len was going to get to admitting Barry was right.

Len let his head drop back against the headboard, squeezing Barry and Mick’s hands. “I just wonder,” he said quietly. No one, in the whole multiverse, would be able to hear the pain in his voice - except the three people in that room. 

“What do you wonder, Lenny?” Mick replied just as softly.

“What else we could have been. I know we were kids at a tough time for queer folks. But other people got through that. I got friends who’ve been together since the damn ‘70s.” Just for a second, Len looked at Mick like they were the only two people in the world. “What if we hadn’t wasted thirty years, Mick?”

This time, the shift was more subtle, as shimmering blue light filled the room like dappled sunlight on a cloudy day. It was almost gentle.

And then they were in the big living room of a house Barry didn’t recognise, but that somehow still felt like home - surrounded by _children._

The scene was pandemonium. Barry saw Mick wince at the noise, just as he did the same. A baby was screaming on the lap of… Sara Lance? An older Sara, maybe by ten years. She’d swapped her White Canary suit for jeans and a practical sweatshirt. “Ohh, shh, it’s okay, Laurel,” Sara cooed.

“I’ve got her,” said Ava beside her, scooping the baby up and making faces at her, while Sara gazed at them both with a look of infinite love - as the baby started bawling again.

“This is the future,” Mick breathed.

“A _potential_ future, I assume,” Len said, before Barry could say something along the same lines.

“Still,” Iris said. “Our future selves!” She looked around. “Where _are_ our future selves?”

There was no sign of any of the four of them. But Barry knew everyone here. Joe and Cecile were at the dining room table with— was that Jenna? She had to be ten years old. She was playing a board game - loudly claiming she’d won, in a very familiar show of West family competitiveness. It made Barry poke Iris, who just laughed. Beside Jenna sat another, younger child who Barry didn’t recognise. But they looked familiar, somehow.

Jax was on the floor with Lily Stein, playing Lego with a toddler and an older boy, each a mirror image of their parents. “Ronnie, you wanted a green block, right?” Jax was asking the boy. “Hey, Martina, don’t put that in your mouth,” he gently chided the toddler. She obediently removed the block and shoved it at Ronnie. He _eww_ ed over the damp Lego, rolling his eyes while his mother produced a Kleenex from somewhere.

Iris laughed. “What’s with all the kids, do we think? Is this someone’s birthday party?”

“I don’t know,” Barry said, “but I like it.” 

“Me too.” Iris bumped his shoulder, and they shared a smile.

An intimidating voice raised itself above the hubbub. “Beloveds.” Nyssa strode over to Sara and Ava, tutting. “Have I not told you that if the baby is crying, I am the only one who can soothe her?” The assassin looked completely at ease as she picked up her child, rocking her in her arms. As the baby’s wail became a happy coo, there was just a hint of triumph in Nyssa’s smile.

Sara lifted a hand in defeat. “And they said Nyssa would be no good with kids.”

Nyssa made a dismissive noise. “I have been raising children excellently for some time,” she said, nodding at Felicity in the corner, with a tiny whirlwind who had to be an eight-year-old Mia. She was in the process of trying to knock out a teenaged John Diggle Jnr, and doing very well.

With the most loving of winks at Sara, Ava said, “I don’t know how we could have doubted you, hon.” 

Barry shook his head, laughing. “I can’t believe our friends have _kids.”_

Len tilted his head. “Did you think they’d stay disaster heroes with terrible love lives forever, Scarlet?” he asked fondly.

“Actually, yes,” Barry started - and then he saw the way Len was smiling, soft and thoughtful, at the children. Barry’s heart was about to burst. “You want some of these?” Barry whispered.

“Maybe,” Len whispered back. He was looking at the familiar child at the table. Now that Barry thought about it, the child did have something of _Len_ about them. And maybe even something of…

Barry’s wondering was interrupted by a laugh - his own. “Oh, come on!” A version of him who looked to be in his early 40s - _wow_ \- stepped into the room. Tailed by Len, looking barely a day older, of course. “You seriously want to bet that Mick isn’t going to turn up to his own party?” 

The barely-older Len grinned indulgently at Barry. “Accept the bet or don’t. This is too many kids for Mick.”

“But not for you,” future Barry said. His smile, it seemed, was still enough to melt Len on sight. Good to know. 

“No,” future Len said, with an adoring half smile back. “Not for me.”

Present-day Len chuckled. “I guess—”

Whatever he was about to say, it was interrupted. Older Barry called out, “Hey, Nora! You want cake?” 

And younger Barry _froze._

Down the stairs and into the room zipped a little storm of purple and yellow lightning, resolving into the tiniest speedster Barry had ever seen. “Abba,” she said, tugging on older Len’s sleeve, “can I have cake?”

For the tiny girl, Len melted a little more. “Too quick, little XS. Let’s slow down a little.” He swept Nora up into his arms. “Didn’t Daddy already say you could have cake?”

“No,” Nora said, snuggling against her Abba. “He said did I _want_ cake. That’s not the same as saying I _can_ have some.”

Future Barry chuckled. Older Len tilted his head at him. “I think this is your domain, Scarlet. Advice on subtle meanings for little neurodivergent folks, hmm?”

Present-day Len was watching the scene unfold with an identical expression as the one on his older counterpart’s face - indulgent and awed. “Nora,” he murmured.

He very kindly didn’t comment on how Barry was blinking back tears. “Yeah,” Barry managed. Len’s arm just snaked quietly around his waist. 

“This is great, and all,” Mick grumbled, “but I don’t get why we’re here.”

Len tilted his head at him. “At this point, I’m just gonna trust the damn Oculus to show us,” he said—

—as the front door opened, and an older Iris came in through the door, followed by Mick, his arms full of box.

“Great,” younger Iris said flatly. “I got old.”

Mick made a dismissive noise. “You think _you_ got old?” 

“Hey, Mick.” Len was grinning at Mick’s older counterpart. Just from the jovial Captain Cold tone, Barry could tell there was a bad joke coming. “Your hair fell out.”

Before present-day Mick could dignify that with a reply, future Mick called out, “Hey, kids! Give your Da a hand with these books!”

“They’re here, they’re here!” Nora squeaked, bouncing her way over to Mick and grabbing a handful of books from the box. She flashed around the room with them, giving one to every child, before settling at the table. Nora dropped a book in the lap of the child who looked more like Len every time Barry looked at them. The two of them started up a conspiratorial whisper, heads bent together. Barry chuckled when, a moment later, Nora bopped the other child’s head with a book, flashed away to avoid retaliation, and reappeared, giggling. “Nora,” the other kid groaned. “You’re so _silly.”_

“Huh,” said present-day Len, staring at the two children.

“Hmm,” echoed Iris, wide-eyed in the same direction.

Nora had acquired a piece of cake from somewhere, which she passed to the other child in obvious apology. “I don’t have time travel powers, so I have to make my own fun,” she said with an adorable grin - so much a mirror-image of her older self that Barry swallowed around a lump in his throat.

“You mean you don’t have time travel powers _yet,_ Nora,” her father called out cheerfully, to a murmured chorus of _Barry, no..._ from around the room. 

Older Iris was handing out champagne flutes, tapping one with a fork. “Heroes, Legends, Rogues—” here she grinned at Hartley, riding around with his toddler son on his shoulders— “and whatever else you’re all calling yourselves now…” There was a general clamour of answers, and Iris laughed and put a hand up. “Not the point! Thank you for joining us to celebrate the publication of Mick’s first children’s book. And his first book ever published under his own name, too.” Her little smile at him was so proud.

Future Barry and Len made their way over to Iris, all but dragging Mick between them. Older Barry wrapped an arm around his wife, while keeping one hand firmly in Mick’s, as though the writer in question was about to abscond. And it did look like he was thinking about it. Len patted Mick on the back and wandered over to join the children at the table, dropping into a crouch between them, as they perused Mick’s book.

Iris continued, “I know the man in question is a little shy—” 

“I ain’t _shy.”_ future Mick growled. “I’m, whatsit. Misogynist.”

“You mean _misanthrope,_ Da,” Nora called out, which started a round of laughter. 

Misanthrope or not, Mick grinned. “What she said. Nora’s gonna be a scientist like her Daddy.”

“Or I’m gonna have a heat gun like Lita!” Nora proclaimed, and Mick beamed like she’d just made his year.

Watching the scene, present-Mick had gone silent. Barry clapped him on the shoulder. “You okay there, _Da?”_

“Oh, shut it,” Mick muttered, and brushed a conspicuous hand across his eyes. Barry chuckled, moving closer to wrap himself around him from behind. “Love ya, Barr,” Mick murmured. Barry dropped his chin on Mick’s shoulder, sighing, as they watched.

Future Iris tapped her glass again. “As I was saying before the man himself stole the show, we’re glad so many of you made it.”

“Yeah,” older Mick said in a doubtful voice, covering his ears as baby Laurel started crying again.

Undeterred, Iris raised her voice and carried on. “Some of you have traveled thousands of miles—” she smiled at Nora and Ray and their little girl— “and some of you stepped through a time portal, hi Sara.”

“Still counts,” Sara called back.

Iris inclined her head, grinning at the trio. “It does.” She raised her voice. “And now, if my partner would like to read us the dedication from the front of his book - no, the partner who’s an _author,_ shut up, Len - okay.”

Opening his copy of the book, Mick cleared his throat. “What Iris said. Thanks for coming. Even the kids. So this book is called _I Can’t Believe I Have To Put Up With Four Parents_ and it’s my first kids’ book, and everyone who said I couldn’t write anything clean, you were all wrong. Len, this is my first book since you got back from that thing we don’t talk about, so it’s for you.” He cleared his throat again - and glanced at his Len, watching him from the table with a look of fierce pride. _“To my partner,”_ Mick read. _“My_ first _partner. We were too young and dumb and mixed-up to admit we were in love from the moment we met. But ever since the day I saved your life, you’ve been mine. And now we’ve got the two_ other _greatest people I ever met, and a couple of beautiful babies. But I’d never have made it here without you. Best forty years I could ever have imagined. Thanks for making it all worthwhile.”_ Mick closed the book, and raised his eyes to meet Len’s brimming blues. Much more quietly, he added, “Wouldn’t do a second of it any different.” 

Len got up, removed his hand gently from little Nora’s, and strode across the room. Grabbing Mick, he kissed him like his life depended on it.

The room broke into spontaneous applause.

Older Barry was already crying. “I just love them so much,” he sniffed. Older Iris patted his shoulder and told him to let it out, while she bobbed her head past him to see if Len was done smooching Mick yet, probably so she could get her turn.

“...Oh,” said present-day Len, nodding at the floor. He turned to look at his Mick. “So I’m gonna kiss you now. Just thought you might want a warning.”

As younger Mick participated eagerly in the promised kiss, and younger Barry wiped away a tear or two of his own while Iris sighed and kissed his cheek, the glimpse of the future faded away.

* * *

NOW 

Elena has put down the clipboard. She’s sitting forward in her chair, staring at all of them through crooked glasses. “Well?”

Somehow, Len manages not to smile. “What, no questions? _How did you feel about that,_ all that kind of thing?”

She gives him a very un-therapist look. “Finish the story, Leonard.”

“Yes, Ma’am.” Ignoring Iris’s chuckle, Len picks up the last bit of the tale.

* * *

ONE WEEK EARLIER 

Len woke up in his bed, with morning sunshine peeking in under the blinds. He stared up, wondering. In the cold - _heh_ \- light of day, there were no more gloomy ghosts dancing in the ceiling patterns. Just swirls of paint. 

“No way,” croaked a voice beside him. Barry’s head popped up - complete with the kind of bed hair that only he could achieve. “No _way._ Don’t tell me that was a dream!”

“Not unless we were having the same one.” Len tapped his head. “And I can still tell there’s no chip in here.” 

A hand slipped into his. It was followed by Mick, rolling over, amused eyebrows raised. “And you were there, and you…. And you,” he added as Iris sat upright with a gasp. “It’s okay, Iris hon - we all had that dream.”

Iris’s little whine of pain was enough to send Barry’s arm around her. “Does that mean it wasn’t real?” she whispered.

Len’s heart went out to her. He reached across Barry to take her hand. “We all saw that future, dream or not,” he murmured, lifting her hand to kiss it. “That means the Oculus was in there somewhere. But you know how it goes with time travel to the future. Nothing’s set in stone.”

Iris nodded, squeezing his hand. “Nora,” she whispered. And then she looked up at Len with a little smile.

Len was pretty sure only he and Iris had noticed the other child and worked out whose they were. _“Potential_ future,” he repeated gently. But he held her gaze, letting her light make room for new possibilities, and nodded a silent promise. 

On his other side, Mick coughed. “Now pay me attention.” 

Len turned to take in his impatient partner. “Were you always this demanding?”

Mick did a cute little bounce of his eyebrows. “You should know.” 

Grinning, Len kissed the man he’d loved every single day of the past thirty years, and always would.

Long and hard enough that Mick eventually grunted and shoved Len away. “Love you too, but I need my mouth to breathe.”

Shrugging, Len hugged him instead. He ignored the happy, muffled noises that suggested Iris was holding Barry back from trying to get involved in the kiss.

A minute or so later, Mick said reluctantly, “I need the rest of me back, if you want breakfast.”

Laughing, Len let him go… and his eyes met Barry’s. 

His speedster raised amused eyebrows. “Always the last, huh?” 

“Never,” Len breathed, and leaned in to kiss the man who had blazed into his life in a lightning trail of hope that never burned out.

While Barry was still starry-eyed and dazed, Len took his chance. “I’m in the bathroom first.”

“Of course you are.” 

“You’re a _speedster_ , Barry,” Len called back, grinning as—

—the bathroom door slammed itself shut behind him.

Whirling around, Len glowered at the second reflection in the mirror. “The hell do you want now, 228?”

Snart-228 smirked back at him. (Had Len ever noticed how annoying that smirk was?) “Had a good night?”

Ugh, the drawl was the worst, too. Len kept glaring. “Debatable.”

“You’re welcome.” 

Len growled. There was no point in posturing, with the guy firmly stuck behind the mirror, but at least he could try for some answers. “What exactly were you trying to do? Was this just a side effect of getting my powers back, or…?”

“Nope. I told you. It was a gift.”

In what was fast becoming a contest of dramatics, Len drawled harder. “Gift. That’s what you call this?”

His doppelgänger inclined his head. “And so will you, when you get used to these powers again. You should really keep them. They could be a lot more fun than you think.”

“I’ll take that under advisement. Are we done?”

The smile Snart-228 aimed over his shoulder was soft. Almost as if he was trying to look past the bathroom door. “Let’s just say I got bored of waiting for you to appreciate your Mick. Things start to make a lot more sense, when you’re stuck in the time stream permanently.”

“Huh.” Len filed that away to wonder about later. He could feel his cold heart melting, against his will, at the thought of a Len without a Mick. This version of him was a manipulative bastard. “You interfere in all your doppelgängers’ lives?”

Len-228 made a face. “Not Leo. He’s annoying.”

The real Len tried not to smile. The treacherous mirror showed him failing. “We have one thing in common.”

“Correct.” Len-228 quirked a grin at him. “Be seeing you.”

“Wait,” Len put up a hand, but the guy was already fading before his eyes. “Was the future vision real? Will I have a time-travelling kid?”

The other Len’s chuckle echoed around the bathroom. “I can’t tell you that. It’d take all the fun out of getting there.” Len-228 winked at him. “There are many possible futures, but you only get to live one. Enjoy it, Len.”

And he was gone.

“Huh,” Len said again. Shrugging, he turned back to the bathroom door. 

It did not open.

“Uh, guys?” he called out. “I think I’m stuck in here.”

So much for the storybook ending.

* * *

NOW 

“And?” Elena asks breathlessly.

Len shrugs. “One Mick Rory with an impromptu battering ram later, not to mention fifteen failures of a speedster to phase through the door while Iris made helpful comments like _I hope you’re not claustrophobic,_ the damn door finally just opened. Two hours later. By that point, each of my three gorgeous partners had annoyed me so much, I was ready to put Iris in charge of burning breakfast and leave them to it. All I wanted was an Egg McMuffin.” He sighs at the thought. “Extra cheese.”

Mick grunts. “Guess your dopple-asshole wanted to give you some thinking time about how great your partner is and how you really shouldn’t take him for granted.”

Len pulls out his most irritating smirk. (Okay, maybe he did know how annoying that was.) “I’m pretty sure that wasn’t the lesson of our little nocturnal escapade, Mick.”

“Wasn’t it?” Mick slides his hand into Len’s, grinning.

Tilting his head in defeat, Len gets away with not admitting feelings out loud. This time.

Elena, who has abandoned her clipboard on the floor with her glasses, lifts her hands at them all. “What about the _tension?”_

“Why do you think I didn’t get the Egg McMuffin, Elena?” Len nods around at his partners, now all jammed onto the living room sofa around him. Len peers back at Elena, tiny but still terrifying, in the Zoom window on the laptop. “We’re still in quarantine.”

Mick gives Len a death glare. “The _cleaning._ I’m gonna kill him.” 

Len makes a _pfft_ noise. “Please. Your _moping_ is the problem. He just flops around the apartment complaining he can’t go to Saints and Sinners.”

“I can’t!” Mick protests.

“You haven’t been there since 2015!”

Iris jabs a thumb at Barry. “Meanwhile, husband dearest won’t stop wisecracking. And he’s always _here,_ and he doesn't even have to _be here.”_

This time, Barry’s little hurt face is not melting anyone’s heart. “I like being with you all!” 

Iris scoffs. “You like not having to leave the house. Have you thought of taking up running?” Her grin around the room is a little too self-satisfied. “It’s nice to be the good partner.”

Barry raises his eyebrows back at her. “Oh really? If you don’t stop trying to bake, we’re never getting the smell of burnt bread out of the apartment.”

She shrugs. “Quarantine hobby.”

“Burning things is not a hobby!” the other three yell, with perfect timing.

Iris shakes her head. “Are we a Greek chorus now?”

“Sure,” Len drawls. “If Oedipus Rex had been stuck at home, instead of sent off to wander in the wilderness. The play would have been dull, but at least he’d never have slept with his mother.”

Elena coughs. “Are you making some kind of point about destiny, Leonard?”

“No,” Barry mutters, “he’s being a snarky asshole.” He tilts his head at Len. “5/10. Not funny enough, no puns, needs background knowledge of classical literature to— _stop tickling me!”_

Len stops - consent is important - and wraps an arm around Barry instead, kissing his cheek. “Love you, Scarlet,” he murmurs. Barry beams and snuggles into his side. 

Elena gives Len a smug look that he finds very irritating. “So,” she says, picking up her clipboard and returning here glasses to their impeccable perch on her nose, “did the four of you learn anything important during this nocturnal vision quest of Len’s? How are you all _feeling_ about it?”

Iris shuffles awkwardly in her seat.

Barry gazes up at the ceiling.

Len mutters something about _therapists._

Mick, who is the only one of them who actually likes Elena, beams at her. He bumps Len’s shoulder. “Gotta live for now. You can’t change the past.”

“Shouldn’t want to,” Len admits, reaching out to put his other arm around Mick. “It got us where we are.”

“And where we’re going,” Barry agrees. He’s gained a thoughtful little smile.

Iris snuggles up to Mick. “Right. If you two hadn’t been complete disasters at love, you’d never have started the chain of events that led to you breaking in here - and we wouldn’t have fallen in love with the two of you, and you would never have admitted you were already in love.” She sighs up at Mick with that dopey expression she sometimes gets for him - and then turns it on Len. “I know I wouldn’t do anything differently.”

Mick grins at her. And turns to gaze at Len. “Me neither.”

In spite of Elena’s watchful eyes, Len gazes back at his partner. His first and his always. 

_Thanks for making it all worthwhile._

He takes in all three of his partners… and smiles. “I guess sometimes the Oculus has a point.”

“And it all started with truth or dare,” Iris says happily. “It was kind of like your doppelgänger did a truth spell, wasn’t it?”

Len shudders. “Let’s not bring magic into this. I don’t need Constantine turning up and trying to exorcise the Oculus thing out of me, on top of everything else.”

“Oh!” Elena sits up straighter. “What _about_ the Oculus, Len? Did you get to STAR Labs to have a new chip fitted?”

Len taps the side of his head like it’s a mysterious box of secrets. “Nope. Figured I might have a go at living with these powers. See if I can do anything useful with ‘em.” He nods at Barry - whose face lights up with a dangerous smirk. Len knows that smirk. There’s a speech coming about how there’s _good in Len._

Fortunately for everyone, Mick interrupts. “None of us are gonna be _useful_ ever again, if Caitlin doesn’t clear us to leave the damn house soon.”

“She says maybe Friday,” Iris says, in a tone of deep sorrow. 

Barry groans and drops his head back against the sofa. “Everything sucks.”

“I can’t think of anything worse,” Mick grumbles.

Huh. Len can’t, either. “I think I liked being dead better than this.”

Three pairs of glaring eyes turn slowly in his direction. _“We don’t talk about the time when you were dead!”_

“I think,” Elena says flatly, “that we are, unfortunately, out of time for this week.”

Barry checks his watch. “We’ve got four more minutes. Can I talk about how much I hate remote working?”

On the screen, Elena drops her head in her hands. Len doesn’t even feel sorry for her. She’s the only one getting paid for this. 

Barry doesn’t seem to notice. “So working for your father-in-law is extra horrible when you’re only talking by video chat. He even said I don’t need to work remotely and should _get my ass down to the precinct before he gives my cases to a CSI who knows how to turn up for their job._ I guess Nadia Rahijah is his new favourite…”

As Iris snaps, “You _don’t_ need to work remotely,” and Mick laughs like he thinks the pair of them are better entertainment than Netflix, Len sighs. He pulls Mick closer, drops his head on his shoulder, tightens his arm around Barry, reaches out a hopeful hand for Iris, and closes his eyes. No one will notice if he has a little nap for the last ten minutes of this torture session.

At some point, Mick whispers in his ear, “I love you.” At least, Len thinks he does. He doesn’t much care if it’s real or a dream. 

All that really matters is that he loves Mick too.

**Author's Note:**

> RetroactiveCon, I hope you don’t object to me borrowing one of your OCs from a distance (Len’s child who has Oculus powers), or to the use of ‘Abba’ (Hebrew for dad) for a future Len who is a father. All credit for both go to RetroactiveCon’s lovely series [Hold Tight to What You Love](https://archiveofourown.org/series/1571482).
> 
> Oh, and here’s the bingo card. [](https://imgbox.com/C0klJkll)


End file.
